Sports Data Analyst
She loved baseball and its statistics. Who knew that one day she would combine her passions within a career path she’d never heard about, and which only recently existed.
FAMILY BACKGROUND
SG’s father was a newspaper reporter and columnist. Her mother was a homemaker. SG’s parents were baseball fans, occasionally taking SG to the local professional baseball team’s stadium, to root for the home team.
CHILDHOOD THOUGHTS OF AN ADULT CAREER
Editor’s note – Since baseball was first played in the 1800s, a hitter’s batting average, runs batted in (RBIs) and home runs were the primary measure of a hitter’s performance. Likewise for pitchers, their wins, and losses, earned runs allowed (runs scored without a fielder’s error), strikeouts and walks, were the essential measures of performance.
This all changed, at least for general baseball fans and for a still growing number of baseball teams, when the book “Moneyball” (by Michael Lewis) was first published in 1973, discussing more complex statistics then used primarily by one team (Billy Beane, the General Manager of the Oakland Athletics), whose strategy was to find inexpensive players who were productive in ways not commonly measured.
“Moneyball” introduced a smorgasbord of baseball statistics to the general fan, and sometimes to teams which had never utilized advanced analytics. For batters, analytics added focus upon such details as how many times a batter reaches base, whether by a hit, a walk, an error, hit by pitch, etc. For pitchers, analytics added whether balls hit were ‘ground balls’ or ‘fly balls’ – important since ‘fly balls’ (including line-drives) are much more likely to lead to runs scored, than ground balls.
With recent technology, pitches can now be further assessed by ‘spin rate’ and by radar, for velocity. Balls hit can be measured by distance, arc, and velocity.
As a child, SG enjoyed both watching baseball games and at the same time, learning and appreciating the many statistical categories recorded by baseball scorekeepers and used by teams to assess a player’s performance.
As a high school freshman, SG read the book “Moneyball”, about how statistical analytics transformed baseball. At that point, everything changed for her. “It turned me on to this (sports data analysis) being a career option. This is a job, as a baseball operations executive.” said SG.
INTERNSHIP
During the Spring of her senior year in high school, SG contacted the administrative office of her hometown baseball team, the Philadelphia Phillies, offering to work as an unpaid baseball operations assistant. The Phillies agreed. “It was really just an opportunity to prove to myself that this was something I wanted to do.” SG’s summer efforts solidified her career ambitions.
COLLEGE
As a college student, SG studied law, jurisprudence and social thought but made use of the school’s strong professional baseball network (several graduates had played college baseball and then were hired within pro baseball operations staffs, eventually promoted to General Manager positions). Using that network of school graduates, SG was hired during college summers, as a paid intern within the Pittsburgh Pirates’ research and development team.
FIRST ADULT CAREER JOB
Following college graduation, SG found employment within the office of the Commissioner of Major League baseball, working on labor relations issues. “But I missed the club side, trying to win a championship,” said SG. So, she jumped to the Baltimore Orioles, where she started that team’s analytics department while serving as a paid intern.
The Pirates had been ‘ahead of the curve’ on the research and development side of baseball statistics but the Orioles didn’t have staff devoted to analytics when SG joined them. SG saw an opportunity: she taught herself ‘SQL Server’ a high-end system for databases, persuaded her management to invest $10,000 to buy the system that turned out to provide helpful analytics information just as SG had predicted. As part of this business initiative, SG was authorized to hire some “very overqualified interns” and together, they built their first database.
“We prided ourselves with a relatively small staff on really being able to find competitive advantages with using data and analytics,” said SG.
Following “Moneyball,” modern baseball became increasingly data driven, combining subjective measures (e.g. scouting reports) with objective figures (e.g. on-base percentage and ground balls produced) to affect scouting player development and in-game decisions by field managers.
PERFORMANCE LEADS TO PROMOTIONS WITH EXPANDED RESPONSIBILITIES
When SG’s recommendations and dedication to self-improvement were appreciated by her management, the Orioles made SG a full-time employee, continuing to work in ‘R&D’ (research and development) but she also became the ‘point person’ to represent the team for issues involving roster management, rules, and labor bargaining compliance. Eventually, she was promoted to Director of Analytics and MLB contracts.
INVOLVEMENT WITH THE INDUSTRY NETWORK LEADS TO A JOB OFFER
As a result of working with representatives of other teams on common issues and their noting the success of some teams more than others in utilizing analytics, SG received an unsolicited offer to move to a different team, the Houston Astros. SG asked questions about that team’s operations before she accepted the opportunity to work with the Astros, which already had more resources devoted to R&D and promised continued expansion.
CAREER SATISFACTION
SG often finds herself the only woman in the room but works for an organization she says values her opinion. The Astros “believe in creating an inclusive culture. I’m proud that my team in R&D includes three awesome women among its sixteen members.”
Increasing the number of women in her field is something SG said she is passionate about. With the Astros’ support, she organized the first ‘Women in Sports Data Symposium’ that was attended by hundreds of women.
